The Williamsburg Christmas Vision D
the first Christmas after the first phase of Colo- nial Williamsburg’s restoration was complete, there were few decorations in Williamsburg because it was thought that visitors would be scarce during that holiday season. But when the town proved to be a popular Christmas destination for tourists, Louise Fisher, who was eventually put in charge of Christmas decora- tions, decided to decorate some pub- lic buildings. To verify what plants the colonists would have used to deco- rate the town during the eighteenth century, researchers turned to the prints of seventeenth- and eigh- teenth-century English nurseryman Robert Furber as a guide. As a re- sult, holly, known as “the prince of evergreens,” was arranged on fire- place mantels and hung in windows, and evergreens, particularly white pines, were brought indoors. One season, Fisher decided to make the decorations more interest- ing by adding fruit and flowers to the arrangements—a look that be- came widely popular and has be-
URING the Christmas of 1934,
such idea is clustering. Using a stan- dard wreath as a starting point, you can put together a four-inch decora- tive cluster consisting of things like fruit, nuts, and flowers to serve as a model for all the clusters you will affix to the wreath. For instance, you can use a small apple as the centerpiece for the cluster and place other objects on each side to embel- lish it and create a symmetrical pat- tern. Another good fruit to use is pineapple.
A wreath made of boxwood, Chinese berries, balsam, hemlock, and magnolia leaves and adorned with apples and a miniature pine- apple decorates a colonial building in Colo- nial Williamsburg.
come a signature Williamsburg holiday look. Fisher based her designs on the work of two decorative artists, sculp- tor Luca della Robbia, who sculpted terra cotta fruit in the fifteenth century, and Grinling Gibbons, whose wood carvings of fruits and flowers were favored by royalty during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centu- ries. (While the use of fruit is an important part of the Williamsburg look, the colonists would not have deco- rated with fruit because it was far too expensive.)
Bringing Williamsburg to Your House Today The charm of Colonial Williamsburg’s holiday decora- tions can be brought into your home by using time-tested ideas developed at Williamsburg over the years. One
In a letter Goodwin wrote to Henry Ford’s son, Edsel, he said: “Unfortu- nately, you and your father are at present the chief contributors to the destruction of this city. With the new concrete roads leading from Newport News to Richmond and with the road to nearby Jamestown passing through the city, garages and gas tanks are fast spoiling the whole appearance of the old streets and the old city, and
T H E E L K S M A G A Z I N E
Pineapples are the symbol of Co- lonial Williamsburg and are used in many of the town’s public displays and wreaths. Pineapples were ex- tremely expensive during colonial times, and the exotic fruit was some- times used to honor a special guest. “We use the smaller green pineapples for wreaths,” Colonial Williamsburg Landscape Supervisor Susan Dippre says. “They are eight inches tall or smaller and are much easier to in- corporate into a wreath than the standard golden pineapple.” If you cannot find green pineapples at your grocery store, the produce manager can usually order them for you.
When you have chosen an object to serve as the centerpiece of your model cluster and are satisfied with the way the cluster looks, duplicate it, and then add all the clusters to your wreath. Dippre suggests that your wreath will look best if the clusters are built using an odd number of items—three, seven, or nine, depending on the size of your wreath. “The eye would quickly pick out any discrepancies in the clusters if the number were even,” she says, “but the differences would not be notice- able if the clusters were uneven.”
Hang your wreath to welcome guests, and add sprigs of holly to mantles and window sills. You’ll find that the holidays are a little bit brighter with these simple touches of times past.
most of the cars which stop at the garages and gas tanks are Ford cars.” Not surprisingly, Ford’s office re- sponded by saying that Ford was “unable to interest himself in the matter mentioned.”
Undeterred, in 1926 Goodwin had the good fortune to meet John D. Rockefeller Jr. at a meeting Goodwin was addressing in New York. Eventu- ally he invited Rockefeller and his
family to visit him in Williamsburg, and charmed by the sleepy southern city, Rockefeller decided to back Goodwin’s plan to restore the town. Rockefeller was so taken with the concept, in fact, that he and his wife, Abby, became Williamsburg residents. “Oh, I am so happy today,” Mrs. Rockefeller told a friend. “John has promised me we can have Bassett Hall. . . .” The only condition was that
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PHOTO: COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATION, WILLIAMSBURG, VA
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